Lily's A2 Media Blog

POST 9: I'VE WATCHED A FILM For research, our teacher decided that we should get some ideas from the basis of all music videos,films. So, from the vast number of films on the shelves in our media studies classroom, he chose a film he thought we would enjoy and had a similiar baseline that we were aiming on for our courswork, for each of us and told us watch and review the film. I got the movie, 'Rushmore'. RUSHMORE (1988) Facts: Director : Wes Anderson Cast : Jason Swartzman, Bill Murray,  Olivia Williams, Mason Gamble Release Date : 20 August 1999 Budget: $9,000,00 0  (estimated) Gross: $17,096,053  (11 June 1999) What had you ever heard of this film before? I had heard of this film before my teacher gave it to me, because I had known the director (Wes Anderson) from his other films and had been recommened to watch this one as well, but had never really got round to it. I love the Wes' other films, The Grand Budepest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdo...

POST 8: I'VE READ A BOOK To further our research, we were given a task to each read a couple of chapters (or the whole thing, if we want) of a book that was given to us by our teacher. I chose a book called Teen Film: A Critical Introduction which is a book written by Catherine Driscoll discussing everything about Teen Film.   Teen Film: A Critical Introduction - By Catherine Driscoll The Blurb What makes a film a teen film? And why, when it represents such powerful and enduring ideas about youth and adolescence, is teen film usually viewed as culturally insignificant? Teen film is usually as a representation of the changing American teenager, highlighting the institutions of high school and the nuclear family, and experiments in sexual development and identity formation. But not every film featuring these components is a teen film and not every teen film is American. Arguing that teen film is always a story about becoming a citizen and a subject, Teen Film presents a...

POST 7: LIP-SYNC PRELIMINARY PRACTICE   Lip-syncing  move the lips silently in synchronisation with a pre-recorded soundtrack. It is used i n the music industry when lip-synching is used by singers for music videos , television and film appearances and some types of live performances. Also, Lip-syncing by singers can even be controversial to fans attending concert performances who expect to view a live performance, but singers choose to lip-sync.  Because the film track and music tracks are recorded separately during the creation of a music video , artists usually lip-sync their songs and often imitate playing musical instruments  as well. Artists also sometimes move their lips at a faster speed than the recorded track, to create videos with a slow-motion effect in the final clip, which is widely considered to be complex to achieve. Similarly, some artists have been known to lip-sync backwards for music videos such that, when reversed, the singer is seen to sin...

POST 6: PRACTICE TASK - KEY MUSIC VIDEOS TIMELINE    This research is to discover the key turning points in music videos in the last century leading up until now. Before we started, the only inclination we had was that Michael Jackson's Thriller music video was important and was a major turning point with creating a storyline with the music video so it was interesting for all of us to see where it originally came from and who influenced the creation of music videos all of the world.  Our online presentation for the Key Music Video Timeline can be found: HERE.

POST FIVE: PRACTICE TASK RESEARCH To research our preliminary music video, it is important to gauge what our audience thinks about music videos, what successful music videos are, and how they consume music videos. To find out what they think, we decided to interview some different people, of different age ranges to investigate and research their thoughts. To get a good and even demographic we thought our age brackets should be: 10-29, 30-44, 45-60, and 61+. Also, we think that because we don't quite know yet what target audience our practice music video will be aimed at, this can be a good excersize to assess and see what ours may be. LR

POST FOUR: OUR PRACTICE TASK PLANNING   We have updated our task slightly due to the fact we have made some progress with our idea for our actual coursework; so we decided to do something that would be more beneficial to our end result. Therefore, we decided to recreate the first 30 seconds of a music video that has inspired our plans for our own music video, which is 'Sleep on the Floor'  By the Lumineers as this would give us some idea of how to recreate the style we are going for and some initial practice of trying to capture those kind of shots. Plan: Potential settings: All of our potential settings are based at our sixth form due to the practicality of being able to film in school time and also having all our group in the same place so it is easy for as all to be there and help each other. It also means that we can use our friends as cast as they will be there as well, making the whole construction of the video far easier. Setting 1: CLC - This setting is the...

POST THREE: RESEARCH INTO EXISTING STUDENT MADE MUSIC VIDEOS A2 media studies music video: High Flying Bird - If  had a gun (A Grade): Creativity   I feel this particular student made music video is very creative and unique in the way they have used the shots and then rewound them to look as if it its going backward. I haven't seen this kind of music video very much but I think it was really effective because it gets the audience wanting to know where it starts and combined with the choice of music, works really well. Setting/Location The setting of the music video seems to start in a town or a city (possibly a quite part of the town/city as we are only exposed to a busy road with not a lot of buildings or shops). However, this then changes about 37 seconds in when we see an extreme close up of a pair of shoes on sand which we assume to be a beach, which continues with the main character facing a statue. (The beach looks like the Antony ...

POST TWO: RESEARCH INTO EXISTING PROFESSIONALLY MADE MUSIC VIDEOS Video 1 - Keep it Mello by Marshmello Creativity: This video is creative as it is takes the name of the band and song and integrates in into the video using props and costume. It is a unique idea to have someone dressed up as a marshmallow and be constantly surrounding them in a normal very day environment so no one else seems to even notice, creating a new reality for the music and the narrative in the video. The video uses the band and their brand in a creative way by doing this, as it makes a character that would not usually be incorporated in such a way introducing the consumers to the song but also adding a sense of character to the band.   The video lacks creativity in other areas as it is set predominately at a party and although that fits with the style of music it is also very stereotypical. Setting/Location: The cross cuts between locations; going from a party to shots of the lead characters w...

POST ONE: OUR PRACTICE TASK EXPLAINED   To start the year off, we were given our practice task; To make a practice music video. My group were randomly given a fairy tale or nursery rhyme, and a question. We can use these as stimulus to create our practice music video. The fairy tale/nursery rhyme we were given was 'The tortoise and the hare and our question was 'What's your favourite colour?'. PLAN NO. 1 We chose, unanimously, to use the tortoise and the hare storyline as we thought the metaphore behindthe story had more promise in terms of making a music video with. Our  initial idea was to create a music video that carried the moral of the story through two contrasting characters.  A brief story of the tortoise and the hare is a Hare who ridicules a slow-moving Tortoise . Tired of the Hare's boastful behaviour, the Tortoise challenges him to a race. The hare soon leaves the tortoise behind and, confident of win...

WELCOME   Welcome to my A2 Media Studies Blog, where I will be posting all of this years work for my A level in Media Studies. We chose our groups for the year and one of our first tasks was to take a group photo - so here it is. I'm really looking forward to working with these ladies beacuse i know we all bring different skills and talents to the team, from organisation to camera work.  Below, from Left to Right: Tazmin Lucas, Lily Ray (me), Daisy Gilbert, and Amelia Gilbert. And a few more...